The Goal That Never Was

Last updated : 05 January 2009 By Paul Neat

Was it a goal or was referee Martin Atkinson right to disallow Sean St Ledger's equaliser that never was? Many will still be hurting after the defeat to Premier League leaders Liverpool but one thing that is still a major talking point is that goal that was chalked off.

With the score at 1-0, Preston had a goal disallowed in controversial circumstances. Alan Irvine gave his thoughts:

"I had already seen the linesman flagging fortunately because maybe I would have reacted slightly differently.

"Initially I thought he was flagging for offside and wouldn't have been happy about that, obviously, but when I saw it come up on the big screen it looked like it had been given for a free kick by a foul by Jon Parkin."

Many felt that Preston were hard done by having by not being awarded a penalty for a foul on Jon Parkin leading up to the disallowed goal.

"I've not watched it all again yet. There was certainly a lot of movement on Jon's shirt at that particular moment but that happens all the time and penalties aren't given all the time so I wasn't jumping up and down too much demanding a penalty.

"He (Parkin) will be extremely disappointed I am quite sure for committing the foul. It probably was unnecessary but it could have easily been one of those situations where he was trying to get up quicker than his marker and wrestling to be first up.

Despite the defeat, Alan Irvine was determined to see things in a positive light:

"We have come out of the game with our pride in tact but we're disappointed.

"We knew it would be an incredibly difficult game, we knew how good Liverpool are.

"The video we got all our footage from was last week against Newcastle so we were in absolutely no doubt what we were facing.

"We were very compact, we were well organised in the first half. The one disappointing thing was when we got it, we didn't pass it well enough, apart from an opening spell and a spell just before half time.

 "I can't criticise our players, they put in a fantastic shift in this game. We knew they would have to do.

"They can all go home being proud of their performance."